Broken Ties

Legacy

Events

1. Chance realized that his father (Edari) has been missing for several weeks now, which is out-of-the-ordinary

2. The group split up to gather and supplies and reconvened to gather intel at The Rotten Man Pub. Cortez, Kamall, and Chance went to The Rotten Man Pub where they ran into both Kamall and Chance’s hunting faction groups, while Chance met an interesting female at the bar. Our heroes learned A) that there have been mysterious happenings in the forest involving the wildlife being mutilated AND B) that Chance’s father was last seen in the forest with an eccentric sorcerer named Sinnig.

3. As the session closed, the group was setting off toward the forest in search of Sinnig.

And So it Begins…

Sorcerer

Back-story

Your family has been the focal point of your entire life. Your father, Edari, is a master hunter who prefers to operate alone instead of joining the other Clan Farview hunting groups. Whereas they require numbers to track and take down large game, Edari is able to bring back large game on his own. This has isolated your family from the rest of the clan and various rumors, such as the claim that he is a “kill stealer”, have surfaced and receded over the years, but as your family deigns not to respond, they seem to ebb and flow like the tide. He has never taken you on hunts with him, but he has taken you, his only son, out into the world. This is unheard of in Clan Farview due to its xenophobic nature. However, Edari wishes you to obtain a more “enlightened view of the realm” to use his words. You have seen many different sights as a child; wolves, bears, and even elves when you were very, very young. However, these excursions have not taken place in several years as you are left as the man-of-the-house.
While Edari goes on hunts, you, along with your mother, are left in charge of your three sisters, ages 9, 7, and 4. Your mother, Sonia, is quite young and it is obvious that she could not physically be your mother. However, she is kind, hard working, and appreciates your father despite his somewhat radical views relative to the other clan members. Your father has told you about your mother on your excursions together, but you prefer to keep this information to yourself.
Lately Edari has been going on an increasing amount of hunts and returning empty-handed. Rumors have surfaced that he is losing his touch. Envious hunters within the clan have been looking for chinks in your father’s skills for years…are they finally right?

Skills history

As magic is strictly outlawed on the Moray Isle, you have obtained these skills in a most unusual fashion. Last year, you and your friends came across some hallucinogenic mushrooms while adventuring in the forest. The three of you took the mushrooms to a grove that only the three of you know about. After preparing them, you set aside a few days to experiment with them. During your trip, you had an otherworldly experience. After ego loss, you were able to see the world around you in a radically different manner. This involved feeling the world than seeing it. These were indescribable hallucinations accompanied by intense feelings, although once you were able to experience them, the world opened up to you in a new way. The distinct difference between this and your companions trips is that the visuals you experienced were not geometric and separate, but amorphous, dim shapes directly linked to the emotions you were experiencing. As you discovered, these emotions can be positive (bliss, love, peace) or negative (isolation, withdrawal, destruction). THIS is the key for practicing magic, as you have discovered. By channeling your emotions and connecting them to the ultimate reality that you can still “touch”, you are beginning to understand how to manipulate reality to create magical effects. However, you know that if anyone aside from your two friends witnessed your ability to manipulate magic, you would be immediately burned alive.

Thief

Back-story

Your family is of a lower rank within Clan Farview. This is not to say that you are “poor” as economic rank is determined by the amount of food your family brings in, and your family does well in this respect. Rather, it reflects the choices your family has made over the last several generations. Your great-grandfather politically maneuvered his way through the clan until he sat upon the high council in Farview; a post that your family hoped to pass down to future kin. However, his youngest son, your grandfather, was the most ambitious in the family and realized that this post would not be his. He secretly guided a smear campaign against his older brother in the hopes that the council seat would be passed to him. However, the smear campaign naturally reflected poorly on your entire family and the seat was wrested away from you, seemingly forever. Your grandfather was found out and it is rumored that, after he was thrown into prison, someone within your family had him killed. Your father, as his direct descendent, has had to endure much pain from within and outside the family for his father’s transgressions. This pain has been passed down to you in the form of constant derision and bullying from your peers. Your only escape is learning, which you luckily have a high aptitude for. Aside from your two friends, you scarcely interact with anyone else who is not your family or a teacher. Outside of school, you feed your curiosity by going on secret excursions by yourself, which you only tell your friends about.

Skills history

If there were one word to describe you it would be this: curious. For as long as you can recall you have been obsessed with know how things work; at biological, anatomical, mechanical, and interpersonal levels. Your love of biology has led you to discover a multitude of plant properties which enable you to create a wide range of concoctions: salves to ease the pain when a loved one falls ill, acid to corrode a lock preventing your curiosity from exploring an abandoned house within the city, and even failed aphrodisiacs to woo your latest crush. Your study of human anatomy helped get you through a few rough schooling years. Once you determined which pressure points could lead to submissions the quickest, you were left alone. Your interpersonal skills have been fine-tuned through years of working your way out of jams after pulling pranks on both friends and enemies. Despite your low rank within the clan, you yourself have never gone without. Last, your love of puzzles has translated into highly attuned mechanical skills for your age. Locks have proved to be the most difficult to solve, but traps and snares also provide a challenge worth your effort. Your recent hallucinogenic experience with your friends has led to intense curiosity about the sorcerer’s experience. Prior to witnessing magic first hand, you were convinced that it did not exist.

Ranger/Fighter

Back-story

Your family has a reputation for being one of the most dependable, honest, and highly skilled at hunting. You enjoyed high praise from high ranking elders at a young age; elders who hoped to utilize your hunting skills to bolster their power within the clan. Hunting factions within the clan vie for up-and-coming hunters to add to their retinue of trackers and warriors. Although inter-faction wars are rare, they each keep tabs on each other and “accidents” have been known to happen out in the wilds. Your father and mother have guided your understanding of such clan politics while keeping you grounded about your skills. As your mother often says, “swords and bows will win you kills, but only humility will prevent you from being one.” Your father is the best known, and most admired, hunter within the Flayer Faction. He strives to practice what he preaches, and makes a point of talking about how he never dominates a hunt nor shows up another hunter. He has taken you on several hunts now that you are reaching the age of a hunter. Although you have yet to take down your first big kill, he makes a point of acknowledging your many contributions. The other two are your closest friends, though you have many. Because you are so aware of the political nature of the clan, you feel that these two are the only ones who do not play political games. However, you are very concerned about the sorcerer’s recent magical developments. You were reluctant to participate in the hallucinogenic activity and fear the ramifications of his new skills.

Skills history

Your father has taught you everything you know about tracking, swordsmanship, and archery. He has spent nearly all his free time for the better part of 9 years training you, his eldest son. This has meant endless hours spent tracking deer, bears, and even rabbits after which you were expected to practice your bow skills. On days when your father was on the hunt, you were expected to duel with your siblings for hours on end. This strict regiment has allowed you to develop keen fighting skills and tactical awareness. However, honor and loyalty to your friends and family are what most define you as a person. If someone were to harm them you shudder to think what your skills would do to the culprit. Already you have nearly killed a boy who goes to school with the thief for spreading particularly cruel rumors about him. You took responsibility for your actions, which your family approved of, though you bear scars on your back as a reminder of the cost of such actions.

Moonshae Isles

You are all born and raised on the island of Moray located within the Moonshae Isles in the Sea of Swords off the coast of Amn in the realm of Faerun. Humans have lived in the central valley of Moray for a relatively short time (4,000 years). In oral tradition passed down by your ancestors, humans migrated West from the Isle of Sarifal during a “Time of Troubles” that is spoken of only in vague, uncertain terms. From what you have learned in these oral traditions, a great necromancer gathered an immense army of undead creatures in an attempt to control the islands for his own purposes. Tradition holds that this necromancer discovered an arcane spell deep within the bowels of the Black Mountains which would enable him live forever by feeding on the souls of converted undead. As humans were pushed to the outer reaches of the Moray Isles, they encountered other “evil” races as well as unimaginable wild beasts. It was only with the help of these “evil” races and animals that the evil necromancer was driven back deep within the Black Mountains where it is believed that he was unable to maintain the conditions for the arcane spell he discovered. In the historical tradition of your people, a great druid brokered the deal with the “evil” races and called upon the wild beasts of the land to join forces in defeating this necromancer.
Shortly after the necromancer’s defeat, cooperation between humans and the “evil” races ceased to serve any purpose. It is said that the main-landers of Sarifal were unwilling to lend Morayans any assistance in this matter. Nonetheless, over the course of several hundred years, the “evil” races were driven into the mountains of Moray during the Great Marsh Wars; the orcs into the Orcskill Mountains and the trolls into the Trollclaw Range. There they remain to this day although occasional raids upon human settlements are not unheard of.

Economy and Means of Subsistence

Moray is a very primitive society from the view of Sarifalians. Most individuals in your society are either hunters or farmers. Your island’s economy relies mainly on fishing and the trading of various crops which each clan specializes in. That said, Moray does not have much of an international economy and prefers to keep it that way. As an island, it is isolated from the other Moonshae Isles in virtually every way, to say nothing of the Faerun mainland. Each village is made up of several patriarchal clans who rule with the interest of the clan in mind, not individual families let alone individual peoples. Individuals from the clan across the field are not to be trusted; people from other islands are to be met with outright hostility, and main-landers are a virtual myth, but if encountered are to be driven away on sight. This leads to strict “business only” interactions between clans. Sarifalians, Omans, and Flamsterders have all resolved not to trade with Morayans and their economies reflect this arrangement. Even though Flamsterders require the importation of most of their goods, they have developed trade relations with Omans due to the fact that Morayans are so xenophobic.

Moray Clans

You are part of the Farview Clan who live in the city with a corresponding name. The other clans, with their own corresponding cities, are Clan Caer (the most powerful), Clan Dynnegall (known as Clan Dyn), Clan Bray, Clan Kork, and Clan Horst. Because the other clans settled on the eastern side of the Breasal Marsh, they have developed loose trade agreements over the years.

Clan Caer

Clan Caer are descendents of Thraebin Caer who’s family of generals liberated Moray from the “evil” races. Thus, Clan Caer has maintained a position of power for 4,000 years. All business with main-landers, what little there is, flows through the head of Clan Caer. Clan Caer also regulates inter-clan trade, almost exclusively to their benefit. This has allowed them to maintain their military power through the ages. However, this is not to say that they are a tyrannical clan. Their military keeps the northern line with the trolls in check, and they lend military assistance in the South whenever orcs threaten Clan Horst. The presence of Clan Caer also ensures that other clans seldom engage in inter-clan wars of significant size.

Clan Farview

Your clan is a bit of an anomaly; an outsider amongst outsiders. Separation from the other clans by the Breasal Marsh has led to the development of a unique, self-sufficient, and highly xenophobic society. Your clan prides itself on being able to take care of itself. Your hunters embark on week-long hunting trips on the plains to the North and the Crescent Woods to the South and are renown for their knowledge of these lands. Left to fend for themselves against the orcs to the South, they have keen, if unconventional, fighting skills. Clan Farview is blessed by the Ketchikan gods who are said to favor them above all other clans.

Ketchikan Religion

Your religion, Ketchikan, values honor, loyalty, and inter-community relationships above all else. Xenophobic views of other clans are interwoven into the history and fabric of Ketchikan belief. The origin of this xenophobia is a result of living sandwiched between orcs and trolls for several millenia, and left to fight alone. Ketchikan is composed of several anthropomorphic gods, which will be explained in detail later. The oral tale “Akitu’s Death” explains 1) the creation of the universe 2) the origin of human life and 3) the nature of life and death. Other clans’ religions are also based off of “Akitu’s Death”, however, different gods have favored different clans based on their actions over the past 4,000 years.

Creation of Faerun

Akitu was a giant of astronomical proportions who came from another universe when he was a young man. He settled down with his family and took to farming and hunting, much as your clan still does today. One day, however, Akitu’s family was attacked by malicious otherworldly beings who wished to visit unspeakable evils upon his family. Akitu urged his family to escape while he fought off the otherworldly beings. After slaying several dozen of them, Akitu was slain when one of the beings slit his head in half with a magical axe. As he fell, he reflexively cast a spell which would create life from his death. As he lay dying, life sprang from the top of his cleaved skull. His brains hardened into earth, his blood thinning into water, and his dying breath lasts to this day as the wind upon everyone’s back. This is the world which you inhabit; the skull of Akitu.

Origin of Humans

Soon, many thoughts of Akitu spilled out of his dying brain. Images of his family sprang to life forming humans of all kinds. However, many of Akitu’s nightmares also sprang to life and this is how the “evil” races came to be. The spirits of all the animals Akitu had killed in his many years of life escaped as these imaginings sprang to life and were able to inhabit the heavens. As they were leaving, however, several felt guilty about leaving Akitu’s imaginings to starve and fend for themselves. Since Akitu had liberated their spirits, they felt obligated to care for Akitu’s imaginings. After discussing what to do, they agreed to send portions of their essence back into Akitu’s thoughts for his imaginings to eat. This is how the many different animals came to be. It is said that the gods sent especially powerful portions of their essence to help fend off the evil necromancer 4,000 years ago.

Ketchikan

Ketchikan is the god of insects. He is very important as he is a go-between for the other gods. This is evident in Faerun because all animals, no matter how large, are always seen with insects in their midst.

Symbols

The different parts of the insect are used as religious symbols to call for favor from Ketchikan. The most holy of symbols is the wing, which is thought to be most important because it enables Ketchikan to travel between the different gods to relay messages. During festivals, people in your clan dress up as insects focusing on their winged aspect. There are several other minor symbols which are important depending on the occasion.

Practicing

Ketchikan must be kept happy and complacent if Clan Farview is to have successful hunts. Because Ketchikan can see many different aspects of Faerun at once with his many eyes, it is important to gain his favor prior to hunts. Ketchikan has been said to reveal crucial information to hunters on the hunt after especially generous displays of reverence. This is mainly done through prayers, but also through sacrifices.

Magic

Because of the infamy of the evil Necromancer, magic has always been viewed as inherently evil to Morayans. In truth, most citizens of the isle doubt its very existence due to the fact that virtually no one has knowingly seen it being practiced. There are rumors of secret societies who practice magic to the detriment of all, but these are viewed mostly as stories to scare children into behaving “properly”. No one claims to know how it is even supposed to work, which only adds to the mystery surrounding it. However, the punishments for confirmed sorcery practice are no mystery. Those found guilty are burned alive for all to see. This is supposed to keep Ketchikan happy by proving that Morayans are serious in their intent to never let another evil Necromancer attempt to wipe out their civilization.